In this sermon, the preacher focuses on a passage from the book of John, specifically John chapter 7. The sermon begins with Jesus standing and proclaiming that anyone who is thirsty should come to him and drink. He promises that those who believe in him will have rivers of living water flowing from within them, referring to the Holy Spirit. The preacher emphasizes that Jesus came to fulfill the Father's will and offer himself as a sacrificial offering to save humanity from sin. He also highlights the significance of Jesus' glorification on earth, his crucifixion, and his ascension, which inaugurated the day of Pentecost and the dispensation of the Holy Spirit. The sermon concludes with a prayer for God's approval and for the congregation to find rest and triumph in their faith.

Make it to be an oasis where people can come and find the blessing of God. Then, dear Lord, we pray to put thy seal and thine approval upon thy servant that preaches the word at this moment. Grant, dear Lord, that we may give thy word according as thou hast in thyself spoken it, that our faith shall stand as it is in the word of the living God and not the word of man. Whatever design or purpose the common fool may have to distract us or disturb us or agitate us, we pray thee to give us restfulness in thyself and relief from his opposition. May we triumph gloriously in thee till we come at last to the crowning where we shall crown thee Lord of all. Give thee the thanks that thy name is worthy to receive from our adoring spirits and we shall give thee all the glory and praise in Jesus' name. Amen. You may be seated. Everybody want Brother Anderson to take full time to say amen. Amen. Glory to God. I'll let you out in fair time. I don't consider that taking an offering is preliminary to any service. And I was greatly surprised when I whispered to Brother French and said, what could you do with $10,000 down here? He could build a tabernacle adequate to take care of perhaps twice as many as this was its seat. You couldn't build it anywhere else for $30,000. They do it because they have so much donated labor. Let's have that big tabernacle over there somewhere and make this into a dining room. All right. I'm reading for you a paragraph found in the Gospel according to John and in chapter 7. Words of our Lord spoken in rather unusual and yet very beautiful truth. Beginning in the chapter, John chapter 7, the reading beginning with the 37th verse. In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink. He that believeth in me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive. For the Holy Ghost was not yet given, because that Jesus was not yet glorified. In giving to you the message of the morning, as I have prayed over it and meditated over it, I want to bring to our attention, to my own heart and to that of yours, the things that the Savior has spoken about the Spirit. John said, This spake he of the Spirit. That is in the 39th verse where I read your lesson out of John chapter 7. I think if you have read with any degree of care the ministry and preaching of the Savior, you will have been impressed how frequently he spoke regarding the coming and the giving of the Holy Spirit. You may recall that he evidently looked over a crowd and saw that the parents had been thoughtful of their children's need, anticipating those needs. And I think might have said, I see that certain of you have brought some food along for your children. And he said that if you being evil, limited as you are with your infirmities of evil, have wisdom enough to give good gifts to your children. How much more? Yes, how much more? Yes, how much more? How much more does the shining splendor of the noonday sun exceed that of a tallow candle? How much more does the vast waters of the seven seas exceed that of a spring branch? And how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Spirit to them that ask him? And then you remember how he took his company into a very close conference with himself as he was under the shadow of the cross and spoke to them about the coming of the Comforter. And even listed them for prayer when he said, I will pray the Father and he will send you another Comforter. Not a substitute, but just another member of the Trinity. But I call your attention to certain of those things to refresh your mind. But I presume that in all that the Savior has ever spoken about the Holy Spirit, or all that has ever been given to us by mouth of prophet, there has nothing ever been spoken that is as amazing as the utterance of the Savior regarding this proclamation concerning the coming of the Spirit. For on that great day of the Feast of the Tabernacles on that last day, when he looked over that company, seeing that they were so dissatisfied with their ritualism and had so little in common with it, it meant so little, his heart yearned over them. And out of that came his proclamation, his plea. If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink. Now who could understand that? Well, this is not the further statement of the astonishing language. He that believeth on me, or in me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly, or out of his innermost self, shall flow rivers of living water. No other is like it anywhere in holy writ. But God was so anxious and so concerned that we might understand what he meant that he had John to interpret it. And thus the interpretation is that this outflowing from the inner soul of the promised rivers, this speaking of the Holy Ghost, which they that believed on him should receive. And then made this rather interesting notation. For the Holy Ghost was not yet given, because Jesus had not yet been glorified. So what I want you to see now in the time allotted is to focus your attention upon these two things. One of them is the glorified Savior. The other is the gift of the Spirit. And I think if you are a careful observer, you will see that these two facts are so intimately related that the giving of the Holy Spirit could not become a reality till the Savior had been glorified. So that we must look a little at the significance, the meaning of the glorifying of the Savior before we can view a little of the giving of the Spirit. The word glory and the word glorified as revealed in the scripture, particularly in the New Testament, is one of the most difficult words to define. It is almost as elusive as trying to analyze a sunbeam. It is clear, we understand it a little of it when we see it, and yet it is hard for us to analyze its significance. But it is derived from an original word that takes quite a number of terms as synonyms to explain it. But as it is applied to the Savior, it has to do with his exalted position as the Savior of mankind. It has to do with his dignity, with his honor, with his majesty, with his might, with the gloriousness of his person revealed in all that he has manifested himself to be as the very express image of the living God. When he is glorified, as John here expressed it, it is when he has been seated at the right hand of the majesty on high. There. In that position, exalted to that office, mediaeval minister of the new covenant, all of that, whenever that was to take place, when that glorious event was to be consuplant of God, then, as evidence of that, and as an effectual giving from that, came the glorious gift of the Holy Ghost. To show you a little of that, Peter said, as it is recorded in Acts 2 and 33, when they were looking around with amazement regarding what had happened to these men, they couldn't fathom the mystery to understand what had occurred. The best they could think of, they were full of new wine. Peter said it's too early in the morning to get drunk. But Peter said this, Jesus, whom God hath exalted to his own right hand, has obtained, or has received the promise of the Holy Ghost, which he has shed forth on us. Now, if you look at that statement, you will see that there was an apparent agreement or a covenant, whatever we think of it, between the giving Father and the Son whom he sacrificed on the cross. And that covenant or agreement was that if you come into the world and sacrifice your life to save men according to the will of the Father, and successfully achieve that task, and triumph in thy conversation and in thy crucifixion, then, as compensation to you as for what you have done for me, said the Father, and glorified me on the earth, I will send the plentitude of the Holy Ghost to that little company of believers. For yet in the world he could not come until Christ had been glorified in his ascension to the right hand of the Father. But when he arrived, it didn't take him long to let that company on earth know that he had arrived. For he cut the bottom out of heaven and dumped upon them and poured out upon them, for the Greek word for shed means to literally turn upside down and dump it all out on them, the gifts of the Holy Ghost. Now in that little preview of it, I come back to focus your attention not upon the fact, altogether upon the fact, of the Savior's condescension into the world when he said, I have glorified thee on the earth, and then in his crucifixion, and then in his final ascension to his exalted position, and there inaugurated the day of Pentecost and the dispensation of the Spirit, and made it possible for us to receive the Holy Ghost. I want you to look a little bit more into what he did when he glorified the Father on the earth. And then prayed that he might be glorified, the Father might glorify him with the glory which he had before the world was. You see, there was a task to be performed. There was a job to be done. And there was something to be accomplished for the Father's will and for human needs. And when the Savior came into the world, he came here with an express purpose of giving himself a sacrificial offering that he might save us from the least of the last and all sin, and bring into being, into reality, by his own sacrificial death, a salvation that was capable of saving men to the uttermost extent of their need, and to glorify God in it. There is something final in the statements of the Savior and in John's interpretation of it. Something that we gather a little from the fact of the occasion when he spoke this. For he said that he uttered these things on the great day, the last day of the feast. It meant more to inspiration to say a last day of a seven-day feast of tabernacles. It meant more than that. For all that was in that ritual and all that was in the things that were patterned had all now come to their conclusion. For he, of whom all that it had pointed, had come in the end of all ritualism, had reached his last day. And that one who should take over and finish with finality all the ritualism that preceded that, was now meant to inaugurate for us not a system of offerings of animals and the shedding of animal blood, but the Lamb of God that was manifested to take away the sin of the world. It was not only a last day as far as ritualism concerned, but it ushered in the last days of a dispensation of divine grace wherein that we are now living in these last days. This is God's final and God's full effort to save us from sin. In this day we will make our last choice. In this day we will receive our last call. In these last days we will receive our last conviction. Whatever we do now, we must do now in the light of the truth which we have received. For the Savior has come and made a supreme sacrifice and terminated all the ritualism that ever preceded it. There will never be anything coming after Him that will be greater. This is the last and this is the great day and this is the day of our opportunity. And the Son of God shone the burden of human sin and laid it upon Him the iniquities of us all and made Him to be the sin-bearer in these last days for us. He came into this world knowing the size of the task He'd have to perform and God praised Him and supplied Him with everything that was necessary to finish the job. And out there on the working hill carved out of the wrinkled face of Mother Earth by the hand of time on the middle cross where He fought the battle of the ages and came to grips with the illness of mankind for a depravity had lurked in the souls of men from time immemorial for all the law and all the ritualism and all the sacrifice of the Old Testament had never been able to grapple with successfully the depravity of the human soul with all it may give could only give them a bit of temporary relief for if a worshiper had once been purged he would have had no more conscience of sin but sin still lurked and hid itself in the confines of his spirit and God could not open a holy heaven to an unholy people and if the sacrifices of that day of the Old Testament were inadequate God would find a sacrifice great enough not from the fields not from the flocks not from our families and there on the middle cross He would come to grips with depravity and condemn sin in the flesh and finish the job and deliver the immortal souls of men from the ravenous powers of iniquity and the bondage which had held them in its grip through the years where nothing else could do it He could do it and He made a sacrifice out there for us to deliver us from our depravity but I remind you of another thing and that is that death had waited with aggravating patience to lay in the graveyard the sainted dead and they had been moved to the fears of death somewhere someplace there must be a glorious Savior great enough in His power not only to come to grips with depravity but to see what could be done about this thing called death and out there on the middle cross when He bowed His head upon His cross's breast and said it is finished He triumphed over death I went out there in my imagination and watched Him as I saw Him bleeding from His seven wounds suffering the just for the unjust they might bring us to God and when He bowed His head into my hands I commend my spirit I looked to see what took place I saw a messenger hurried over to the palace of Pontius Pilate and said Jesus of Nazareth is dead I saw another one hurry to the place of the high priest and said to him Jesus of Nazareth is dead and the high priest scorned and sneered with contempt of the man of Galilee I saw His mother bow her head and shed her tears and bowed to the decree that her son was dead I saw His disconsolate disciples look like that every hope that had ever been built had suddenly collapsed and all their expectations had been shattered because Jesus of Nazareth and perhaps the devil climbed up on a pulpit in perdition and delivered a dissertation on death and held the Son of God in His grip and His power but you know He wasn't dead He only entered death in order that He might end it He only gave Himself to it in order that He might destroy it and He rolled back the grave and triumphed over delusion and in that great moment He had anointed Him the hour of His death and yet when a man is bleeding white in his agony and anguish his strength is waning and yet he still remains the perfect Savior for when a poor thief caught in his sin dying by the side of his Lord looked up at Him and plaintively cried out in his anguish remember me in the dying, bleeding Son of God that I could put out His hand and touch Him virtually and touch Him with the touch of His outstretched hand and shelter Him with His blood and I think He might have whispered to him and said the chariot with its safe driver which shall descend from heaven to bear me up to the triumph of my throne shall wait for you and I shall take you along and blessed He is that He was glorified when He set a transformed thief on the portals of glory and introduced him to the archangels of God and said here's the first one I heard one time about some small boys that were diving off a springboard into a deep hole of water and a man came up and he said how deep is it one little lad said yes sir it's an awful deep he said I've got a shiny half dollar and one little fella leaped and was gone dangerously long and finally came up and said I touched it the next little fella made his dive and he was gone so long that it looked like he wouldn't come again but presently his little head bobbed above the surface he was so out of breath he could not say a word he didn't need to for he had some black mud in his hand he didn't need to leap into sin for us as a sacrifice and say praise the Lord when he had foreseen and foretold his triumph that he would ascend and John had interpreted for us Jesus foreseeing that triumph you know our Lord had never had a doubt in His mind regarding His ultimate victory and triumph over Satan to save us from sin He had not yet been glorified He had not yet been crucified He had not yet been resurrected and ascended to heaven and yet He is so sure that He shall achieve the Father's work that He already opens up the thing and gives us the invitation and proclaims it in His voice when He said if any man thirsts they come underneath and drink it is translated there that the Savior cried and said if any man thirsts and the Greek word for cry is one that called out with a loud voice over and above the demons the confusion and the uproar of all the multitudes around the feast and gathered around in the city with a loud voice over and above all of that until there were a few ears that could hear Him about the deal and the confusion and a wild glorious proclamation if any man thirsts let him come under me and drink they were carrying a little pail of water from the pool and pouring it out before the great autumn as they went back and forth and the multitude had been there so long so they began to get thirsty in the very sight of water making them thirsty and the Savior took advantage of it He said it isn't the pool of Siloam it isn't any other pool or any other well the wells of everlasting water are standing here now wide and open and if any man thirsts let him come unto me and drink of living water and be under God in the Lord I don't know how you feel about it I don't know how it ever feels to you but if ever you once in your life have ever been parched and tormented with a real thirst and a real desire you are not going to take any substitute you've got to have the real thing and you never will be satisfied and never pull your tongue in I had a case of old fashioned typhoid fever why the doctors in that country section thought if they gave you water or gave you any food it meant sure death and they wouldn't give me but a few drops of water and no food and I got into delirium and I could see snakes and all sorts of creatures crawling over me and stinging my body I was literally burnt up with fever and I was laying in a bed and see the vast expanse of the Ohio River as it flowed on I had a rope stretched across that river and I was hanging on the middle of it and let all that river run down my parched throat I was thirsty and if you had come up to me and said oh young man I've got an interesting story I want to tell you I didn't want to hear a story I want music I wanted water someone had come up and said I would have never satisfied my thirst and whenever you reach that place that you want the Holy Ghost and you want God and you want all he means to you you won't take any substitute you won't listen to that sweet music you won't offer for a job in the church you've got something crying out in you that wants the Holy Ghost we have a drink at that fountain now I want you to see in a hundred moments I want you to see something of what the Savior has embraced in packed in to the fact that out of your innermost soul shall flow the rivers of living water it is one of those mysterious statements and yet he is speaking of the Spirit and there must be some factual truth in this highly figurative language so it is that we can get a little glimpse of that fact may I remind you of this first of all that there is something very peculiarly and very interestingly stated in that connection between the glorifying of the Savior and the gift of the Spirit now my contention is that what is provisional in the fact that the Savior glorified and on his exalted throne in his majesty and in his might and from that exalted throne has given us the Holy Spirit and it could not be given until he reached that then what is provisional can become experiential within our own hearts so I think I'm on safe ground when I say this if you want the Holy Ghost if I want the Holy Ghost if I am thirsty for the waters of life which he alone can give and start the surging within my soul then I of my own volition and choice must give the Savior his exalted place in my soul that he has in heaven and according to him the same glory and the same honor and the same worship and the same adoration and the same pleasure of all that is recorded in heaven I must record in that in my heart and any man or woman that gets on your prayer board and asks almighty if you are not willing to put Jesus Christ in his exalted place will never get the blessing to be glorified in them who receive the Holy Spirit and they don't get anywhere they seem to want a feeling or want an emotion or want some sort of a gift that isn't it the thing comes for is to glorify Christ in your heart and in your life and their own so he said that he said that you receive not only the Father's promise but you receive a person I'm a little afraid that we're getting our eyes off the person and on to certain emotions or certain external evidences that the person may bring to pass and get our mind off the person he is not an emotion he is not a mere influence he is a person and when you receive him he answers your sense and understanding as a person now we've got people all over the country that's got the idea that you don't get the Holy Ghost and the evidence of it is you speak in tongues I remind you without being facetious in any way that a gift of tongues is not even necessary to speak any language for Balaam as spoke neither the gifts of God neither moral capacity now I didn't say that with tact and reflection on the scriptural gifts but I'll tell you this whatever can be duplicated whatever can be counterfeited whatever may be imitated whatever the devil himself might imitate would be dangerous in any human being to rest your soul on it for how would you know from what source you're handed and if you spoke a language and if Satan could give you a language to speak if you could work yourself up into it and speak it how do you know what source it'd be from so God would have to give you something that would be more assuring than a language or an emotion or anything else if he gives those gifts that's his business but they're not evidence of anything nothing but when he gives you a person whenever he brings the person the Holy Ghost in he don't have to have any emotion he doesn't have to display himself in some strange language what he is in himself is enough if I should ask any intelligent man in this audience this morning after the service is over if I would ask you was Rob Sprint present in that service if you've got two eyes or one eye you could see he was here well I'd say how do you know he was there did he climb a pole did he stand on his head did he run the aisles did he laugh or sing a special song or did he preach in the same language he said nothing his presence is all you want it is what it is and when God comes in he doesn't have to prove his presence by some sort of a secret but what you cut now he's the effect of it saves us from going to see and seeking certain emotions that is in itself astonishing and mystifying and we wonder where it could seem to human life I think we'll have very little difficulty about it if you would think that the individual the person of the believer that has all that demonstration the individual the believer is only the container and the Holy Ghost is in himself the furnisher of the rivers they're not yours they only flow out of you and you're the container but an interesting thing about the river here that though it flows through a channel the waters move but the banks never move and the banks are everywhere but the stream is so you have become a channel the movement is not within you but in the outflowing of the spirit of the living God outflowing from your life you are the source there tell me that there are springs somewhere in here where there is a river of river that comes up out of the ground and flows out in a great stream that everybody that gets near it goes to see its beauty it's something that comes up out of a secret source and flows out it isn't a matter of the soil it isn't a matter of the banks it's a matter of the stream that flows out and you give yourself to God and He stops you by putting the Holy Ghost in the deepest secret well springs of your nature and uses you as a channel and then out of you flowing out is the spirit of God and breaking up ground I don't believe that a hole in the channel for what you can have some wherever you are you know we wonder sometimes how that our prayer and our performing and our work for God we wonder how they ever reach anyone there are facts shown in the scriptures that a person in one part of the country can pray for another person in another part of the country and never see them and never know anything about them just know that they're there and suddenly know that by the way of heaven get over even there had it ever occurred to you that the current of a river not a reservoir but a flowing river carries some freight on and had it ever occurred that when you pray you put your prayer on that flowing river of the Holy Spirit and He takes you exactly to the place that you wanted to go and have you ever had an experience where you've been a struggler and been a cryer and been a praying and it looks like nothing's going to move and directly it just starts a going and you wonder how it did well just like I used to be a little pump and some of the big steamers that went up and down washed it out and threw it up on the sand and I'd have to get a hold of it and I'd struggle and I'd twist and I'd push and luckily she floated and just went as easy so you get a load of prayer and you just sweat and you push and you bear down and you struggle and luckily she floats and it got there alright and then one of these days one of these days when we said our little peace performed our little work for the Savior and finished our course and just kind of fold up he's dead I wonder how he gets to heaven all he ever did was was just fold it up and leaned over on the river of the Spirit of the Living God that had been falling out of his soul and he just carried him right on to the New Jerusalem for that's the way it's flowing anyway moving toward its rest in the vast sea so on the resurrection morning we'll find this that God had transported our spirit and brought us in to the City of the Living God and we don't go in laying down we go in standing up and with glorious victory we'll find out and then it was a river of the waters of life and prayers crystal flowing out from under the throne of God every river starts out at its source goes to its level picked up by the sun and carried back to its source and raises somewhere and carries it back again and drops it down at the source and in the circle of God the Holy Ghost flows out of us giving it rest in the world you can't gain it up and you can't stop it from going in the City of the Living God